We got a car today! Carter still wasn’t feeling great so we packed his things and John carried his bag. He was able to carry himself, his day pack and part of the time drag the rolling bag. We were able to have breakfast at Hotel Lodi this morning which was a very simple danish and coffee affair. The walk to the train station was about a half mile, the train ride two stops or about 15 minutes and another ¼ mile walk to Avis car rental! John was anxious and excited about driving in Italy, especially about getting from inside the city of Rome to the freeway. He was anxious for nothing and handled it like a pro!
The Apennine Mountain range surprised us the most along the drive north to Tuscany. The range is so much higher than I expected. Obviously I haven’t researched that! J Traffic was pretty light so smooth traveling. As we drove through the countryside, we realized that not just the ancient cities are representative of so much history but the entire country, that we’ve seen so far. I think I learned that if you are building, nothing can be removed but you can rebuild on top of what already exists just like has been done in history. Very quickly we began to see remains of medieval architecture. Imagine – 1000 to 1500 year old architecture. We can only see anything in the states just a few hundred years old and even then, so many things are destroyed to build something new. I love the preservation of history!
We made a stop along our drive to see sights and have lunch. In reality, we were not on the same page but had not communicated. John really wanted to see Siena but I didn’t realize. We also did not have a plan really so he asked me to find a spot. I also didn’t realize that if we did not make it to the vineyard by 7PM, we were out on the streets; sleeping in the car. Whatever that would have looked like, it wouldn’t be good! I suggested that we make a detour to Terni where the tallest man made waterfall in the world would be nearby. In actuality, Terni was about 45 min out of our way and is not a tourist town. No one was expecting to see tourists who really don’t speak their language. We were able to get by ordering lunch in a beautiful square and had the most amazing insalada. We also had Cacia de Pepe which is basically noodles with olive oil, Parmesan cheese and pepper but amazingly delicious!! We also got to drive down one of those streets where you don’t think the car will fit!
The fact that we are driving my literal castles in the countryside blows my mind! The three major medieval ‘power houses’ in this area were Pisa, Florence, and Siena (we will see two of three). One major note along the drive was that every structure is so simply made of stone and more recently some things are stucco but everything is a natural stone color and very low maintenance. I’m wondering why we create homes in the US that are so high maintenance.
Ultimately, we made it to the Vineyard, Cesani, in time with no rush! The world around us is unbelievably gorgeous! Again, the hills are higher than expected and more than we imagined. We are renting a two bedroom apartment with a full kitchen. GraceLin was beyond excited because she has not cooked in over a week! The hostess, Maria Louisa, grew up here on the vineyard. She is supper kind. She sent us around the corner to ‘Il Rustica’ for dinner. She called them to make a reservation and put it in the name Cesani. It made me laugh because it’s about 300 feet walk from our apartment and my guess it that the restaurant is also family! J Either way, it was outstanding food and environment! We settled into the apartment, sang a terribly GA Lyman’s version of Happy Birthday on a voice memo to send Foster who has an excellent voice (I’m so sorry Foster!) and then walked around the corner to enjoy dinner. After dinner, we watched the Anvil Academy graduation. We were all sad to miss the kids friends graduate this year! That is such a special event! Congratulations Anvil graduate class of 2023!! Windows open again tonight, it’s a beautiful place to fall asleep!
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